


First Aid

by kit_fox



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 17:07:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7900858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kit_fox/pseuds/kit_fox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hux is not feeling well, but he's too stubborn to let anyone know.  Ren cares more than he usually lets on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Aid

**Author's Note:**

  * For [acroamatica](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acroamatica/gifts).



The splitting ripping screaming tearing in his head and down his neck and through his eyes was somehow worse today than ever before. Not the usual ache the General had come to know and respect but a full body crack, as if his bones were protesting serving him, his overworked muscles, ever at a state of tension, ready to mutiny. Everything hurt. The day had been spent, to his terrible chagrin, alone in his dark quarters, jaw clenched against the lightning flashing through him.

Kylo Ren approached the door with a sure stride and tapped the intercom. He had felt Hux’s discomfort in waves, dark crimson and sharp, digging into him from across the compound.

“General,” he said through the door. “You were not at your post today.”

 _A brilliant deduction,_ Hux thought, grimacing at the low, distorted voice, piercing right between his eyes as he lay on his couch, a stack of prison transfers unread beside him. 

“No,” he called out with some strain, and it bounced back on him, ringing in his skull like a whirlwind of hammers. “I was indisposed. See Reyes for any documents you need.”

That was as much conversation as he could take and he squeezed his eyes shut, covering his face with both hands. The minimal effort of moving that much, of saying those few words, felt like death had swept him.

“I need to speak with you. It’s urgent.”

It would be. Ren had no respect for anyone else’s personal space. Hux was half dressed, his quarters hardly in order, and he was in no form to stand up to Ren’s particular brand of conversation. 

“Surely it can wait --”

“It is urgent.” 

Well give the man credit for sticking to his point. Hux groaned and sat up, the slamming and punching in his head tripling with each movement, and traveling down his spine as if some terrible creature was fighting him for dominance. He passed a hand through his hair and buttoned his collar, determined to look at least professional if not military issue, and fought his way to his feet.

“Enter.”

Kylo opened the door and the moment he was in the room he could feel waves of pain and tension, dizzying, almost nauseating, coming from Hux. He was even paler than usual, and looked as if he were swaying and shaking on the spot, badly wanting to cling to something for support. But that would not look military of him. Ren shut the door and removed his mask, setting it on the table by the door.

“Well, yes, what is it, Ren?” Hux asked, his voice a strained rasp as he struggled to focus.

Kylo flicked his eyes to the couch. “Shall we sit?”

Hux made a sound of impatience but gratefully took his seat back, the white swarms of swirling bees in front of his eyes parting slowly as he did. So much for urgent after all. Ren took a spot beside him, rather closer to him than he had anticipated, and when he spoke next, his voice was quiet, calming, soothing the ache between his ears like a cool hand against his forehead.

“I’ve been meditating,” he said slowly. “Trying to discover more effective, less invasive tactics to achieve peace. I may have a new method that would interest you.”

Hux did not approve of Ren’s bizarre sorcery. The things his father would say to such a man... But he was too dizzy at the moment for a cutting response and, was his ache receding? He narrowed his eyes, suspicious of the unusually quiet, gentle voice of his associate.

“What are you doing, Ren?”

“Do the unthinkable, General,” Kylo said as he tugged at the index finger of his glove, then the middle, pulling it off entirely. “And have patience.”

As Kylo stretched a hand toward him, Hux felt his already flushed face heat further at the strangest of things. Had he really never seen Ren’s hands before? Such an ordinary thing. Men shake hands every day, no gloves at all, and yet there it was, naked for the first time, long fingers and smooth palm, and it felt like a strange sort of intimacy, something he was not supposed to see. And there it was, chasing after this shock like a runaway missile, another strange intimacy -- the hand so close to his face, right beside it, and from his hand a warmth, a pulse, a glow, a hum, the mental and emotional equivalent to sinking into a bed after an entire day of training --

He yanked his face back, staring at Kylo with wide, confused, furious eyes.

“What in the hell -- how dare you --”

The fingers curled back into themselves but the hand stayed close, waiting, and Kylo’s expression -- which Hux did not often get to see -- was patient, if smug.

“You’ll feel better.”

“I feel fine,” he snapped, shoving himself to his feet. He regretted this at once, as rash choices and sudden movements do not help one remain poised when fighting off dizziness, and he wavered and stumbled and went down hard on one knee, kneeling as if before a lord.

The lord behind him decided not to take it as a show of fealty, nor to laugh at him for it, and he came forward to lift Hux to his feet, ignoring protests that were growing steadily weaker. Careful that the General’s pride come even before his health, Kylo held him firmly by one arm and wrapped the other around his shoulders as he guided him out of the main room and back to what he assumed was Hux’s bedroom. So close to him, he could feel the man shaking, feel the sharp crackling pain coming from him like exposed wiring. 

Hux’s bedroom was like Hux’s life -- spare, orderly, precise, grey. The only interesting feature was a bookshelf against one wall and below the typical rows of military books, treatises on war, histories, language textbooks, there were several shelves -- almost shameful in their stacking, titles turned this way and that as if they wished to hide from prying eyes -- of everything Kylo would not expect. Ancient poetry, plays, novels, travel accounts, giant illustrated atlases. He tried not to smile as he glanced it over and laid the protesting general on his bed.

“You’re not well at the moment,” Kylo said over the groans and “look here”s of the squirming Hux. “So just sit still and be quiet. You don’t have to do anything for once.”

Hux frowned and opened his mouth to argue, when Kylo sat beside him on the bed and laid his bare hand against the back of his neck. Hux jumped and, to his surprise, went quiet. 

It was not just the familiarity. Ren would do as he pleased, though he did not suspect he would ever haul him bodily into his own room and sit on his own bed -- let alone touch his neck unless it was to choke him. After the shock of his touch had worn off, it was something else. Something was pulsing through him at the tips of those fingers, and what he had felt before was just a shadow, just a breath -- the pain in his body was melting and slowly, slowly, it was being replaced by the cool mint balm of his touch, spreading from the back of his neck up through the base of his skull and down his spine. He shuddered with it, actually trying to fight it off.

Kylo chuckled behind him, flattening his palm against the back of Hux’s neck.

“Relax,” he said.

“Ren,” Hux tried to sound commanding, but his eyes were fluttering shut. “You know how I feel about your da-damned magic tricks...”

“I know,” he said, pulling off his other glove with his teeth and reaching around to the front of Hux’s neck to work on his collar buttons. “Take this off, it’ll work better without it.”

“No!” he said, appalled, but Kylo’s hands had both come around to unbutton the top half of the shirt and work it back from his shoulders, exposing a constellation of light freckles and, beneath that, muscles that had never been taught to relax.

Hux sighed and finished the last of his buttons. His stubborn ferocity was quickly melting under Kylo’s hands. _The sooner I feel better, the sooner I can get back to keeping this place from burning to the ground,_ he reasoned, helping Kylo peel his shirt back from his arms. He jumped again when he felt both hands, warm and gentle, pressing against his shoulder blades, and without even moving it was as if he were undoing a series of locks and chains and knots, the fists clenched tightly all along his back releasing at Kylo’s first contact. Hux heard a soft sound, a little sigh, and his face went up in flames as he recognized his own voice.

To his credit, Ren did not brag. He was not here to bring the General down a notch, or to engage in their usual verbal knife dance. He had felt that pain and misery from across the compound, and for a moment opened himself up and felt Hux’s pain in full, wincing behind his mask and nearly stumbling. He and Hux were men of a certain stripe. Pain was fuel to them. At least, Kylo felt that way when it was his own. Hux’s pain was different, crippling, and it killed him that it took this much to slow him down.   
His hands moved slowly, waiting for a sound, a protest, but none came. He melted the sickness and tension away like butter in a pan, the smooth skin beneath his hands responding to him by relaxing, little by little, shoulders dropping against the mattress more and more. At last, breathing turned steady and rhythmic, and Kylo glanced over a freckled shoulder to see Hux’s eyes shut. He smiled, pressing a feather light kiss to the back of his neck.

“I’ll let myself out,” he said softly.


End file.
